YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip (theverge.com) 279
An anonymous reader writes: YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will be introducing an unskippable, 6-second bumper ads before certain videos. The video juggernaut says that these ads are largely aimed at mobile users. "We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads -- and we're excited to see what the creative community will do with them," YouTube's Zach Lupei wrote in a blog post. The Verge reports, "The company justifies the short ads (which cannot be skipped, unlike longer spots) by pointing to research showing that 50 percent of 18 to 49-year-olds turn to mobile as their first option for consuming video -- and keep in mind a ton of that is music."
"cannot be skipped" (Score:5, Funny)
*challenge accepted*
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They can make it 'unskippable' in the sense that you have to wait 6 seconds. However, a custom video player can blank the screen or something in that interval.
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:5, Insightful)
We are inexorably marching towards Blipverts.
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I dunno... if Blipverts caused the people on reality television to start exploding, it might improve the planet somewhat.
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:5, Funny)
There Goes Honey Boo Boom
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>blank the screen or something
Just show the youtube buffering animation. 6 extra seconds of that shouldn't even be noticeable to most users!
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they're already making you watch the first 6 seconds before the 'skip' button appears, it's more like they're accepting the fact that everyone hits the skip button at the first opportunity. At least this makes the advertisers attempt to be clever within the 6 second limit, and maybe could make for an interesting twitter-like ad experience. But if, once the skip button is gone, they start letting the ad length creep upward, that'll be the beginning of the end.
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:4, Insightful)
People might be a lot less inclined to hit 'skip' right away if they cracked down on the loudness of ads. I'm finding with a lot of them (video game ads primarily) that I'm ignoring the ad content entirely because I'm hunting for the volume control, then immediately going for the skip button. Youtube audio levels are already variable enough without allowing the television loudness tricks to take hold, too.
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Except the advertiser does not pay when people skip.
So it is in the advertisers best interest to have you skip if you are actually not interested in the ad, if they made a nice quiet ad, people might let it run without realizing it even if they are not interested and the advertiser is out money.
Criminal enterprise needs more money (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that thing with bumping the volume on the ads is especially annoying and especially abused by a couple of scam companies that use loud sirens or screeches to insure they have my attention. And hatred.
What I can't understand is the financial model driving their insane rudeness. I am not aware of ANY ad on YouTube that represented ANY product or service that I would ever consider buying--and if I did remember their ad, it would insure I would try much harder NOT to buy it even if I thought I had a use for it. Whatever it is.
There must be some aliens among us who respond to the ads?
Anyway, the real problem is that YouTube itself is a criminal enterprise. Every week for the last few years I do an obvious search to see scam results. There are two to five legitimate results buried in several pages of scam results. How is it benefiting YouTube or the google to assist the scammers in pwning YOUR computer? I still can't figure it, but it obviously isn't going away any time soon. (There are several obvious countermeasures, but YouTube only took one baby step in the last few years.)
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:5, Interesting)
6 seconds is long enough to add a product or service to my family's "Do not buy/do not do business with" list...
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Gonna be pretty difficult when the ad is spliced into the actual content.
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Why? When it's exactly 6 seconds, it should be really easy.
Re:"cannot be skipped" (Score:4)
Well yes duh (Score:5, Insightful)
How else did you think they were going to pay for all that bandwidth you consume watching 15 minute 4K videos of someone unboxing toys?
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With advances in technology such that the bandwidth isn't even worth caring about. Just old enough here to remember the dire warning that some USENET servers used to display to us, admonishing us to post sparingly because the 10k of text we were submitting would be "duplicated across thousands of servers and cost thousands of dollars".
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How else did you think they were going to pay for all that bandwidth you consume watching 15 minute 4K videos of someone unboxing toys?
Are they going to accept the charges for the cost to us of the bandwidth we pay for that their ads use up? I wonder how much of their ad revenue would be eaten up by that...
They are out of options (Score:2)
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Well, it's not like youtube isn't monetized in other ways. Ask the people getting money FROM youtube for the views on their videos.
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I watch youtube exclusively in 360p. Can I skip the ads?
Re:Well yes duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Peering doesn't pay for hard drives and racks.
I mean, selling your user data probably does, but....
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Why should their business model (or lack thereof) be my problem?
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Because if their business model isn't sustanable they do crap like this to fix that?
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They aren't making their business model your problem. If you object to the ads which are part of their business model then you are making it your problem.
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*sigh* OK then I quit youtube altogether. Now how much are those advertising eyeballs worth? . In fact I *do* have a problem with it. Its not like these are poor little startups without any cash. I'll just send them a bill for the bandwidth maybe. And as far as the content creators go, none of the "how-to" community that I'm in, depends on ad revenue.
Re:Well yes duh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not. No-one's forcing you go to YouTube.
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Your shit doesn't get covered with other people's ads unless you check the checkbox agreeing with YouTube to monetize your video, or if someone proves a copyright claim on your content, and chooses to monetize it, over taking it down. The point of the ads is to pay for the content, not the bandwidth.
Re:Well yes duh (Score:4, Informative)
And they're still not doing enough to stop infringement according to "rightsholders", who have access to the system to monetize/takedown videos under their control with no oversight or repercussions for false and even outright fraudulent claims.
So you advocate the opposite of net neutrality? (Score:5, Insightful)
> If YouTube wants money they can get it from the ISPs.
So under your proposal, YouTube would charge ISPs for access to their site. As would Slashdot and all of the other free (advertising-supported) sites, I suppose. If your ISP doesn't pay up, you can;t access YouTube, correct?
So you only get access to those sites that your ISP pays for. Obviously your ISP isn't going to jack around making contracts for $10/year to access HowToFixAppliances.com, or any of the other 99.99% of web sites that aren't in the top 500 most popular. So you get access to whichever portion of the Alexa top 500 that your ISP negotiates a satisfactory deal with, and nothing else.
I don't care for that plan. What I prefer is that I buy access to the INTERNET as a whole, Slashdot, YouTube, and VeggieRecipes.com get access to the internet, and I can access any site. Time Warner and Comcast aren't involved with paying the bills for third-party web sites, and don't control what I can access.
Re:So you advocate the opposite of net neutrality? (Score:4, Interesting)
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This idea is as dumb as the idea the ISPs had where they could charge YouTube to graciously permit you to visit their website.
Google has their ISP that they pay, you have your ISP that you pay, and various peering arrangements govern how the two ISPs talk to each other.
This even applies if Google installs servers at your ISP's data center, the videos still have to be transferred to that server over the internet backbone. Google isn't going to have a person with a thumb drive walk over to Comcast HQ to uplo
Sorry ... (Score:2)
Marketing lingo (Score:5, Funny)
i just love how they're "excited to see what the creative community will do with them" and all i hear is "yay, mo' money"
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marketing at its best.
Well, YouTube's parent is an advertising company after all.
What if you have YouTube Red? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have Google Music so I get YouTube red for free so I don't think I am seeing ads. Even so a short ad instead of paying is not a bad deal. Now Hulu where I pay had have way too many ads sucks.
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Not new? (Score:5, Informative)
In my experience, mobile ads can't generally be skipped anyway.
Sure, the "Skip" button is there, but the ad is usually mostly over by the time the YouTube app actually responds to the tap anyway. Especially when you get a Chromecast involved.
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Mute the sound for the first six seconds, then automatically pause if the tab isn't the active tab.
For bonus points, automatically resume the video when you go back to that tab. (Changeable in the settings, of course.)
Haikus of video ads? (Score:5, Insightful)
greedy company
intrusive advertisements
I'll watch somewhere else
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mad that they want some payment?
do your job for free
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That's no longer an option.
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If they can't manage to operate a business, then they should stop. I don't really understand your desire for protectionism when most of the internet managed to operate for decades without Google's help.
Google is a good thing until the day they aren't, then we should simply change and adapt the internet to suit ourselves, rather than form policies around how best to maintain the status quo.
Hasn't This Been Happening? (Score:2)
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I ran into, along with some friends unskippable commercials that are ~30-seconds long in the past couple months.
I ran into an unskippable Squatty Potty [youtube.com] ad on YouTube about a month back. What was particularly annoying was the fact that the video I wanted to watch was only about 30 seconds long, but the ad is nearly 3 minutes long.
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I ran into an unskippable Squatty Potty [youtube.com] ad on YouTube about a month back.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
Why is this even a thing??? Much less an advertised thing??? Do people really miss their squat toilets that much when they move to North America?
My faith in humanity dies a little more each day...
Xposed YouTube AdAway? (Score:3)
If you don't want me to watch it... (Score:3, Insightful)
...go ahead and put ads in it. If the first thing I see is an ad, or one pops up, my immediate next click is on the window close button. I'm there for the content, and if you disrupt that, you're history as there's no point otherwise.
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Content producers won't put content on a site that has no viewers.
Do we need to post Ars and Verge stories? (Score:5, Insightful)
I go to Slashdot for first-source news; the same reason I go to Ars Technica and the Verge. The problem with linking stories on other news aggregation sites is you've increased the chances that I've already seen the story (and perhaps already commented on it) to just about 90%. Let's link the original source and skip the middle man (i.e. the competition).
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First-source? Half the time it's not even the first time that story's been on Slashdot!
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What the hell are you doing using a news aggregator to get first soure news?
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Volume (Score:2)
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Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits [wikipedia.org]
how do they, er, plan to make this work? (Score:2, Interesting)
YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip
Well is that a fact?
Well, at least, what's a bumper ad? I like it when there's a bumper crop. I enjoy bumper cars. I have no idea what a bumper ad is.
Given the succinct nature of the format, we’ve seen Bumper ads work best when combined with a TrueView or Google Preferred campaign. In early tests, Bumpers drove strong lift in upper funnel metrics like recall, awareness and consideration. We also see that Bumpers work well to drive incremental reach and frequency when paired with a TrueView campaign.
*snip*
We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads – and we’re excited to see what the creative community will do with them. You can use Bumpers beginning in May by talking to your Google sales representative, and stay tuned as we continue to roll out new ad formats that are uniquely adapted to the way people watch video now, and in the future.
Huh???
Ok, I'm being obtuse. Right before what I quoted it says they're 6 second ads. But WHAT are they and WHY are they unblockable? Are they in the video feed itself? If that's the case, I have an mplayer incantation for right after I do my youtube-dl incantation....
Excited to see.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like they're excited to see their users go somewhere else for video content. People will rip the content from youtube and upload it somewhere else. Ads, ads, everywhere ads. Seems like a missed opportunity for mobile. Why not exempt Android users from the ads and only force them on iPhones? They could market it is another advantage for going with Android.
Slashdot (Score:2)
You mean like those annoying auto-play video ads on the home page?
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Oh I blocked those years ago.
R.I.P. Slashdot ad revenue.
The cycle continues... (Score:5, Insightful)
This same cycle has happened with many a lowly tech company; it's a fine line that google has been treading, but it's bound to happen with some of their services:
Step 1: Create a product which has massive social appeal, operate in the red and make up for it in volume
Step 2: IPO
Step 3: Get massive speculative investment
Step 4: Never turn a profit off your actual vehicle, merely use it as an avenue for...
Step 5: Ad impression generation
Step 6: Slow exodus of viewers
Step 7: Increase ads to make up for exodus
Step 8: Competitors step in to fill vacuum
Step 9: Viable competitor presents itself, starts consuming market share
Step 10: Eventual collapse of initial product, go to Step 1 for new competitor's product.
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Twitter/Vine
Snapchat
Facebook
Amazon (especially since they bought Twitch)
And sure, Vimeo, why not?
What we need is a site that simply pulls all content via BitTorrent with seamless streaming. Video streaming via BitTorrent has been possible for a while, and in a closed implementation it could easily be made to work. Just need yet another bloated, permission-fucking JS library to integrate that into a browser window and force all connected viewers to upload. The site itself could be nothing but minimal html
Haiku... (Score:2)
We like to think of Bumper ads as little haikus of video ads
If you have been reading the comments at Slashdot at -1 for the last few months, you probably know a haiku that fits perfectly.
How is this different (Score:2)
You already had to wait several seconds before you could skip a longer ad - so it will have the same effect, I watch six seconds of ad and go onto the video...
Or rather they think I watch six seconds of ad, when what I really do is auto audio and go browse something else for ten seconds then come back...
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I refuse to use the youtube ap on my stuff for this reason. I noticed that I get a lot more ads with it.
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Blipverts (Score:3)
https://youtu.be/PJP-Ilw_xaY [youtu.be]
It seems YouTube is intent on becoming Network 23.
Stopped using YouTube a While Ago (Score:2)
Perhaps a year ago I stopped using YouTube because I started getting pushed those long 30-second non-skippable ads for every single video I was trying to play. Now they're trying to push 6-second ads that are non-skippable on mobile phones. Too bad I won't see them since I stopped using their service.
As a matter of fact I even uninstalled Google news and weather app from my Android phone today because it stopped using my Firefox with ad blocker to present the news stories and instead started using the built
Not long enough (Score:4, Funny)
Keep them non-vulger! (Score:2)
My kids are the YouTube consumers in the house. One of them loves Minecraft videos. Let's just say that YouTube's choices of ads with those reflect zero knowledge that there's a 6 year old viewing them.
And don't tell me to use the YouTube kids app. It overfilters in most cases, but also underfilters.
Maybe let me set preferences if you're going to force ads on me? Or at least note my time zone and select ads based on the old-school network rules for what's appropriate at certain hours of the day?
-Chris
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That really doesn't explain the completely inappropriate ads my kids keep getting on YouTube. Our viewing history is almost entirely Minecraft videos, Disney Cartoons, and Katy Perry videos. Even I could write an algorithm to figure out that it's probably kids watching the videos (of course, I have a Ph.D. in this stuff, so that's not quite fair ;) ).
-Chris
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If you happen to work at YouTube: my one request is a simple setting that lets me flag the account as one that is used by the whole family. That alone should give you enough to target ads more effectively.
Also note that I'm not complaining about ads - just that they're not appropriate and YouTube's current (machine learning? auction based? ???) algorithm doesn't work very well.
-Chris
Could be worse (Score:3)
My local news site has 15 second unskippable ads.
The videos auto-play if you move your mouse cursor over them.
They also make you watch the ad again if you replay the video.
They then auto-play another random video that usually has nothing to do with the article you're reading.
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Out of curiosity, what ads are you seeing on youtube that arent appropriate for kids to see? I can't think of any I've seen. On the other hand I don't have kids so I don't look for or think about such things too much so maybe I'm just not noticing.
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Who mentioned kids?
Use Vimeo or DailyMotion? (Score:2)
Maybe it's time to use a different video service?
Ummm... they already do this (Score:2)
At least there's "Mute" (Score:2)
I've already gotten used to muting any ad that doesn't have a "Skip" button. Since 95% of my video browsing happens on a tablet, it's nothing to put the ads and set the tablet down for 15 to 30 seconds.
I'd be much more inclined not to skip ads if: (A) more of them were local and relevant, and (B) the same ads didn't repeat 3-4 times within 90 mins of viewing short videos.
Do these type of ads even work? (Score:2)
You Can't Skip (Score:2)
But you can hit mute and look out the window for ten seconds to do some thinking.
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*sets down tablet*
"Hmmmm...make America great again...oh, look, my video is ready to play!"
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But you can hit mute and look out the window for ten seconds to do some thinking.
Then you'd better switch that brain off and start watching youtube again.
No wonder they say the current generation has no attention spa............haha, kitties!......
"largely aimed at mobile users" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes thanks, because I have so much fucking mobile data to begin with, and it's soooooooo cheap.
fucking asswipes. Glad my phone's out of warranty soon so I can root it and install AdAway again.
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Already get unskippable ads (Score:3)
Already get 12 to 30 second unskippable ads on the youtube app on android. It's infuriating. 5 or 6 seconds is ok but up to half a minute? Get fucked.
I cancel and try to play the vid again a few times, and if it still won't let me watch it without being forced to see this 30 second unskippable ad I just skip the video completely and don't bother.
Exciting... (Score:2)
Wait ... wait ... (Score:2)
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Internet Cancer (Score:2)
AKA YouTube to forcibly market Youtube Red (Score:5, Insightful)
"OK, hit the button marked 'Make Regular YouTube Slightly Shittier' once or twice"
TANSTAAFL (Score:3)
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you thought Google was your friend or sends you free videos to make you happy, or isn't evil, you have another think coming. It's going to get worse from here, much worse. Get used to it: you are Google's money pump, nothing more. The first one is always free.
They already have unskippable ads (Score:3)
It might depend what country you're in, but here in Australia they already have adverts up to 30 second long (usually 15) that are unskippable. I don't know what proportion these are in comparison to skippable adverts, but I -wish- they'd go down to 6 seconds long.
(Yes, I have an adblocker, I leave it off for Youtube because ad impressions = income for the creators of the series I'm watching.)
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Youtube is already bandwidth hogging. Don't use the service if you're unwilling to pay for it.
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seeing ads is not paying. Indeed, it would even be an better option to have a monthly fee than to have mandatory ads.
Re:Caps? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, jackass, it's not free. Someone has to pay for it. Either you're the customer and you pay for it with cash, or you're the product and the advertisers pay the cash. Fuckoff with your "I deserve" bullshit.
Re: So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: So... (Score:4, Interesting)
You'll get a small electric shock if you try that
More like the ad conveniently auto-pauses for you whenever the face recognition detects that you are looking elsewhere...so helpful! Also mandatory, so yay!